A doozy of a day

 I wrote the Christmas letter today.  I will never live up to Robb's style but will do the best I can.  It will be revised every month until I send it.  Right now it's pretty raw emotionally.  I won't share it here until December.

I returned from Maddy and Matthew's house on Saturday, JUST in time for Super Secret Steak Night or as my attending sister-in-law calls it, Somewhat Secret Steak Night.  Meri has mastered the grill and the steaks were perfect.

Last week at Maddy's was great and a much needed break from being totally immersed in all things Robb and MIL related.  I needed that so much.

Maddy and I spent Saturday morning, before I left, making a bunch of food for her new deep freezer.  We made 30 Juicy Lucys, enchiladas, shredded chicken, chunked chicken and frozen oatmeal cups with blueberries.  In a mere two hours of work, we filled up her freezer and they are set for a good long time of quick meal work. Someday soon, Meri and I need to do that again too.  I think our mistake two years ago was that we tried SO many new and untried recipes.  How can you go wrong with a Juicy Lucy tho?!  (which is a hamburger patty with cheese inside..)  Already making plans...

Maddy had ordered us matching tie-dyed pajamas for the week!  So of course, we couldn't cook in the kitchen together without them!  The shorts are pretty short, so I wore long pants with them as I didn't want to scare Matthew.

While I was gone, Robb's cousin found a VHS tape in his basement of Robb's graduation in 1984 and shipped it to me.  It was waiting in our mailbox.  I had to dig in the garage for a VCR that worked, but finally did.  There is pure gold in this thing!  It was so great to see him just a couple years before we met and seeing his smile!  You could tell how close he was to this cousin.  I could watch this 30 second clip every day and I probably will.

Last night, I gassed up the mower, popped on some headphones and started two rows around our front yard.  The grass is getting a bit shaggy and the weather was beautiful!  Got a call from Meri, "um, when will you be at my house?!" Were you expecting me??!  "We have Grief share meeting in 10 minutes!" whoops!  I parked the mower, grabbed my keys and ran.  Got there JUST in time to walk over with Meri.  The yard looks like it had a bad haircut or was going for the Mohawk look.

I had had my first remembered dream about Robb the night before and while it was comforting, it was also disturbing.  So with that fresh pain, this meeting was extra hard for me.  I'm so glad they keep a box of kleenex on each table...  I spoke and shared... too much...  I kept getting louder and louder, crying and blubbering  as I shared and the whole time I'm thinking to myself, "shut up SHUT UP!" but I couldn't stop my mouth.  Finally I did and felt pretty stupid.  But if you have to feel stupid somewhere, it might as well be there with a bunch of other grieving people.

Maddy had found a Griefshare group near her and had only missed out on the first meeting so I attended with her last week.  As luck would have it, it was the exact same video that she'd watched when she visited with us.  Even though it was a repeat, I could see the appeal of repeating the classes again.  Watching it a second time, made the things they said sink in further, deeper.

Whew!  Not sure how today is going to go, but based on all I wrote so far it'll be a doozy...